This tiger's just a pussycat

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The female Sumatran Tiger with her keeper Samantha Stephens.Picture:Nicole Emanuel

An angry tiger - ears and whiskers flattened, teeth
bared and a guttural snarl shredding the hairs on your neck - sends an
unmistakable signal. Melbourne Zoo carnivore keeper Ben Gee got the
message two months ago, the first time he met the zoo's new Sumatran
tiger, Binjai.

"Like it or lump it," says Mr Gee, known as Tiger Man
for his years of dedication to tigers, "it was terribly distressful when I
rocked up and got this negative reaction from a cat I've been waiting six
years for."

The rare young animal imported from Rotterdam Zoo to mate
with Melbourne's Sumatran tiger, Ramalon, didn't like males - at least not
the human variety.

Since arriving on June 11, Binjai has shown an
aversion to men in particular and groups of people generally. It is one of
the reasons only a handful of people had laid eyes on the two-year-old cat
until this week. She made her first public appearance heavily
anaesthetised during a medical check.

Binjai's primary trainer and
keeper since the tiger's arrival has been Samantha Stephens, a New
Zealander from Auckland Zoo with degrees in science and zoology and eight
years' experience with carnivores.

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Mr Gee praises her as one of the
best animal trainers he's seen. He describes as "nothing short of amazing"
watching Binjai "present" her shoulder to Ms Stephens on Wednesday morning
for a tranquilliser injection, avoiding the more traumatic use of a dart
gun.

"I don't know if animals really develop a relationship with you,
but they certainly understand over time how you are going to react," says
Ms Stephens. "I understand how she is going to react."

She recalls
Binjai's initially relaxed demeanour, with the cat scoffing "some nice
bunnies" and chewing a beef bone the morning after her arrival from
Europe. But Binjai soon became anxious and exhibited a fear of people,
says Ms Stephens, who suspects a pre-departure or in-flight
incident.

She began positive re-enforcement training to temper the
cat's reactions to men and also sought some biographical information,
discovering that Binjai, who was born and reared by her mother in
captivity, had been separated from her sister just before leaving the
Rotterdam. On arrival in Australia, she was forbidden contact with other
animals because of quarantine restrictions."The biggest thing for her was
not having other cats around," says Ms Stephens.

The female Sumatran Tiger in her new enclosure.Picture:Nicole Emanuel

But now, at last,
Binjai is within hearing and smelling distance of her future mate. This
week, after a thorough veterinary check, the tiger was taken to a new
off-limits area alongside Ramalon's rainforest exhibit.

Mr Gee said
last night that although the tigers could only see one another as
silhouettes through a bamboo screen, Ramalon had already worn a track
along the dividing fence.